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Tight Arse Motoring Options?


gtd2000

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High mpg cars turn you into those old giffers that keep a notepad of fuel use and speak like Melvin Bragg (used to )

Not really;)

 

my rank taxi Octavia would do 55mpg driven like it was stolen and 30mpg whilst drag racing for a day.

 

sure, sensible driving got 62-63mpg but where is the fun in that?

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  • 1 year later...

Well, now that I have over a year of driving diesel under my belt and been thoroughly impressed with the cost of motoring via £30 road tax and up to 83MPG, I've decided I want something a bit bigger than the i20.

 

Last week I went out and bought myself a 2012 KIA Cee'd 1.6L CRDi EcoDynamics SW (estate to you and me!).

 

It's an ex-MOD fleet car with 155k on the clock and to say it looks drives like it's only done half the mileage would be pretty accurate.

 

On the way home, I achieved and average of 67MPG on a run from Dunfermline to Galashiels, which isn't too shabby at all.

 

It's needing a couple of tyres on the front soon and I just found out that the AC condenser needs replaced as my mate was re-gassing it last night and it wasn't holding pressure - you could hear the nitrogen escaping somewhere down towards the botttom of the condenser.

 

Here it is:

 

kCPHmTI.jpg

 

Px9HRzN.jpg

 

Unused tools and spare tyre

 

cmlhK67.jpg

 

OxUPcdh.jpg

 

EecihaX.jpg

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High mpg cars turn you into those old giffers that keep a notepad of fuel use and speak like Melvin Bragg (used to )

 

Back in the 90's, a guy I worked with commuted from Telford to Shirley (Solihull) every day.

He plotted his consumption on Lotus 123, in a none turbo Astra estate. He was pissed off one day, when his average had dropped below 70 mpg.

Most of the time he was averaging 80 mpg.

HOW ?

There was never any noticeable acceleration. He was in neutral if there was a junction coming up. He never seemed to actually brake. He reckoned he knew exactly where to change lanes on the M42, M6, and M54 in order to be in the lane that was still moving.

He turned the engine off at traffic lights and in traffic jams.

I tried it for a week. NEVER again. Life is too short to make it that miserable.

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I see these hyper mpg people on the road - so frustrating to follow . They must have so much time on their hands !

To be fair, it takes so little effort to get decent MPG out of these cars.

 

I bowl along at legal speeds when traffic allows me to.

 

With the i20 I did a trip from Edinburgh to London. Then toured around the South East and averaged 70mpg for the entire trip. That was even with two adults and three kids plus luggage in the boot.

 

The Cee'd might be marginally better on the motorway due to having a sixth gear.

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Back in the 90's, a guy I worked with commuted from Telford to Shirley (Solihull) every day.

He plotted his consumption on Lotus 123, in a none turbo Astra estate. He was pissed off one day, when his average had dropped below 70 mpg.

Most of the time he was averaging 80 mpg.

HOW ?

There was never any noticeable acceleration. He was in neutral if there was a junction coming up. He never seemed to actually brake. He reckoned he knew exactly where to change lanes on the M42, M6, and M54 in order to be in the lane that was still moving.

He turned the engine off at traffic lights and in traffic jams.

I tried it for a week. NEVER again. Life is too short to make it that miserable.

I'm happy to do a bit of hyper miling.

 

I'm certainly not that anal about it though. It can become a bit of a game, if I'm being honest, to see how much you can get per gallon.

 

If I'm getting 65mpg, I'm very happy because that can be achieved without any real effort.

 

Makes me wonder why people put so much money into something like a Prius.

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I commute 120 miles a day and done it on some fairly good bikes (BMW S1000RR, CBR 1000, GSX-R 1000, BMW K1300S, Aprilia RSV-R, Guzzi V1200) over the years.

 

Now most days I do it on a Piaggio Xevo 400 I purchased from this very forum. Great weather protection and 70 mpg ridden "normally). But riding it at no more than 60 mph takes me an extra 30 minutes a day (it makes up time in traffic) it averages 93 mpg. My litre plus bikes never bettered 45 mpg on the same journey.

 

Makes me wonder how much using a scooter could have saved me in fuel over the last 10 years - let along tyres and servicing. As the ride is all motorway /dual carriageway, there's no excitement to be had (2 roundabouts and 3 bends in excess of 45 degrees each way).

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Thanks for your efforts ! Lets me continue to drive my 12mpg Landy

That's pretty awful.

 

I've had a few American pickup trucks with Hemi engines that got way more than that at 15~17 US mpg hauling arse.

 

I'm no fan of land rovers, after time in the army...

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I commute 120 miles a day and done it on some fairly good bikes (BMW S1000RR, CBR 1000, GSX-R 1000, BMW K1300S, Aprilia RSV-R, Guzzi V1200) over the years.

 

Now most days I do it on a Piaggio Xevo 400 I purchased from this very forum. Great weather protection and 70 mpg ridden "normally). But riding it at no more than 60 mph takes me an extra 30 minutes a day (it makes up time in traffic) it averages 93 mpg. My litre plus bikes never bettered 45 mpg on the same journey.

 

Makes me wonder how much using a scooter could have saved me in fuel over the last 10 years - let along tyres and servicing. As the ride is all motorway /dual carriageway, there's no excitement to be had (2 roundabouts and 3 bends in excess of 45 degrees each way).

My 1986 GSX-R750G gets about 35mpg, 1983 GS450GA around 60mpg. Super Cub 110cc at least 120mpg and Lexmotos ZSB about 80mpg.

 

It's mad to think a car can beat most of those bikes on fuel economy.

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Does it say 80MPG on the readout or is that a brim to brim calculation taking mileage over-reading into account?

 

My girlfriend's Mk2 Clio DCi sips fuel however you drive it, and it's quite fun to drive. Not done any calculations but it must average an easy 60MPG+.

I did brim to brim calculations when I first bought the i20 and it only showed a variation of 1 or 2 MPG but that could also be due to inaccurate refilling I guess?

 

After getting confident that the guage was close enough, I've only used the meter readings.

 

The Cee'd also has a real time mpg reading, where the i20 only had a ruler guage for real time MPG.

 

What I like about the real time reading is that it shows how very slight changes to the pedal or gear can make huge differences in fuel economy.

 

I've no doubt the little Clio will be able to get 70mpg with better driving techniques.

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My 1986 GSX-R750G gets about 35mpg, 1983 GS450GA around 60mpg. Super Cub 110cc at least 120mpg and Lexmotos ZSB about 80mpg.

It's mad to think a car can beat me of those bikes on fuel economy.

Ive always thought that too. My AX gets around 53 mpg with no attempt at economical driving- could easily better that. Probably all down to bikes having dreadful aerodynamics.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Back in the 90's, a guy I worked with commuted from Telford to Shirley (Solihull) every day.

He plotted his consumption on Lotus 123, in a none turbo Astra estate. He was pissed off one day, when his average had dropped below 70 mpg.

Most of the time he was averaging 80 mpg.

HOW ?

There was never any noticeable acceleration. He was in neutral if there was a junction coming up. He never seemed to actually brake. He reckoned he knew exactly where to change lanes on the M42, M6, and M54 in order to be in the lane that was still moving.

He turned the engine off at traffic lights and in traffic jams.

I tried it for a week. NEVER again. Life is too short to make it that miserable.

 

Back in ninety minutes ago I tried to accelerate in 5th gear doing 60mph in a non-turbo Astra estate. About 89 minutes in, I gave up. 

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Back in ninety minutes ago I tried to accelerate in 5th gear doing 60mph in a non-turbo Astra estate. About 89 minutes in, I gave up. 

 

That's one of the differences I've noticed between petrol and diesel.

 

With a petrol you are usually looking to keep the minimum revs or attempts to change the revs to preserve fuel economy.

 

With the diesel, it appears to be more economical to drop a gear with a lighter touch on the throttle. Certainly gives better results than staying in a higher gear and trying to increase momentum.

 

I've never had a petrol car with a real time MPG reading to verify if this also works for petrol.

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